Discovery of the neutron star nature of SLX 1737-282

Abstract

SLX 1737-282 is a persistent moderately bright X-ray source 1.2 deg from the Galactic center. X-ray observations with the Wide Field Cameras on BeppoSAX have for the first time revealed the true nature of SLX 1737-282: a 15-min long thermonuclear flash was detected exposing the source as a neutron star in a binary system. The flash was Eddington-limited constraining the distance to between 5 and 8 kpc. We analyze BeppoSAX, ROSAT, and RXTE data on SLX 1737-282. The persistent 0.5-200 keV luminosity is close to or less than 1% of the Eddington limit which implies a rarely-seen circumstance for thermonuclear flash activity.

Accepted for publication in A&A Letters

References in corpus (3)

• ASCA X-ray source catalogue in the Galactic Center region
• X-ray bursts at extreme mass accretion rates from GX 17+2
• A half-a-day long thermonuclear X-ray burst from KS 1731-260

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